Pardon my use of a fire metaphor when entire neighborhoods in southern California have been destroyed by wildfires. The sad fact, however, is that political arson is the only thing Donald Trump does or knows how to do.
His own response to the wildfires is a case in point. While they spread destruction from celebrity mansions in Malibu to multi-generation African-American homes in Altadena, Trump exploited them to launch a lie-filled smear of Democrats. He has neither the capacity nor the inclination to bring Americans together in the face of tragedy.
Meanwhile, Republicans insisted that strings be attached to any federal aid for rebuilding after the fires. For example, they demanded that Democrats support raising the debt ceiling to permit another round of tax cuts for needy billionaires, even though red states on average receive more in federal aid than they contribute, while blue California contributes billions more in taxes than it receives.
Egalitarianism is not a thing for Republicans, who treat the diversity of America’s population as a leftist plot, feel entitled to hold power exclusively in perpetuity, and assume any election they lose is rigged despite a lack of evidence.
There is no point in soft-peddling the takeover of the United States by fascists, racists, religious fanatics, and conspiracy theorists, especially considering their own addiction to vicious and fact-free rhetoric.
With our nation in peril, the least we can honorably do is stand for the truth in defending our constitutional republic against the flood of right-wing disinformation.
Two owners of social media platforms, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, have justified their abandonment of content moderation by invoking free speech.
One of the most dangerous lies in today’s politics is the pretense that fact-checking is a threat to free speech. It is no such thing.
People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Trump, however, acts as if he is entitled to have reality alter itself to suit him.
It can hardly be a surprise that a man who autographs bibles harbors delusions of godhood.
Many people in the news media appear convinced it is their duty to help normalize this nonsense. No. An election victory — especially Trump’s mere plurality of the popular vote in 2024 — is not a magic eraser.
Trump remains a convicted felon. A grift remains a grift. Climate change remains a global threat. Demanding territory belonging to other countries remains a form of imperialistic aggression. Tulsi Gabbard remains a Russian asset. Demonizing people for their gender identity remains dishonest and cruel. Continually stoking social division remains the opposite of leadership.
President Lincoln once said, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one.
As I write this, it is not known how many proposed members of Trump’s cabinet of saboteurs will be confirmed by the Senate; but it does not look promising if one holds the old-fashioned view that people should be fit for their jobs.
Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth at his confirmation hearing repeatedly dodged questions about drunkenness and sexual assaults. Meanwhile, Trump wants to jail former House Republican Conference chair Liz Cheney, who remains stoutly conservative while most of her former GOP colleagues have abandoned their principles in favor of a personality cult.
Let us not pretend we didn’t see this coming. We spent the past decade witnessing Trump’s relentless, successful appeals to voters’ lowest impulses.
The only hope for stopping a slide into oligarchy, which President Joe Biden rather belatedly warned about in his farewell address, is to reaffirm Lincoln’s call for his fellow citizens to heed the better angels of their nature. This requires swimming against the political current.
At my Catholic elementary school in the 1960s, the nuns and lay teachers insisted that we behave like sheep rather than use our human brains to think for ourselves. It did not take hold in my case. Decades later, I helped win civil marriage equality in the Nation’s Capital over the protests of the Archdiocese of Washington.
Now, I have the satisfaction that Washington’s outgoing archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory and incoming archbishop Cardinal Robert McElroy are both welcoming toward LGBTQ+ Catholics.
Many battles for the soul of our nation lie ahead. This war will be waged not on a distant front, but all around us and unavoidable. Standing against Trump’s willfully mindless rabble will be hard; but we will feel better for doing it in the long run.